Dear Readers,
Antonio (Tony) Ghezzo, L’Italo-Americano’s historian of “A Bit of History” and contribu- tor for over two decades, and Franco Zeffirelli who rose to international fame with a score of lush spectaculars, including Il Turco with Maria Callas at La Scala, Antony and Cleopatra at the Met and La Traviata in Dallas, Texas and directed several films including The Taming of the Shrew, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton which commanded sellout crowds on both sides of the Atlantic, have something in common besides the fact that with their blue eyes and good looks they were teenage heartbreakers in Northern Italy.
Unfortunately, there was World War II going on and Franco, who was studying Art and Architecture at the University of Florence, left school and joined the partisans and eventually (because his father, a textile merchant once hired an English widow to give him weekly English lessons) joined with the British troops until the end of the war.
Unknown to each other, Antonio Ghezzo then living in Florence, also interrupted his studies to join “I partigiani”. In 1980, Franco Zeffirelli wrote his autobiography, recalling a career that spanned more than four decades as director of both opera and movies and his days as a partisan. A movie, “Tea with Mussolini” about the English ladies of Florence imprisoned by the Nazis followed.
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Now, Hot off the Press, comes Anthony Ghezzo’s story “Living in the Mouth of the Wolf”. The book, a biography, is based on the true story of Antonio Ghezzo’s past as a partisan and also his personal life story as gleaned from conversations Antonio Ghezzo and Salvatore DiVita had together since they first met at a P.I.P. (Pointers in Person) meeting back in 2004. The book’s author, Salvatore DiVita and its hero, Antonio Ghezzo, had been complete strangers.
However, at Dino’s Restaurant in Pasadena, a luncheon was held by the Italian Genealogy Club known as POINTers (Pursuing Our Italian Names Together).
A common practice during these luncheons is to pass the microphone around and, in turn, each person tells of their latest discoveries regarding their lineage or some Italian connected anecdote they have recently learned.
As it happened, the subject under discussion was the L’Italo- Americano Newspaper.
When the microphone was passed to Salvatore, he spoke about an article he had recently enjoyed reading about Italy during the Second World War. After passing the microphone to the next person, his wife Marie whispered, “The author of that article you liked is sitting at that table at the far end of the room”. The person she was referring to was Antonio Ghezzo who was sitting with his wife, Giovanna.
The Italian genealogy club continued to meet periodically for lunch. Salvatore and Antonio as well as Marie and Giovanna became better acquainted. With the friendship came revelations from Antonio of his past life. He spoke of his teenage years as an Italian underground (Partisan) resistance fighter and described anecdotes of the many battle skirmishes in which he fought, or situations in which he narrowly escaped death. Remember that although the “Partigiani” fought throughout Italy, the German constant for reprisals was a minimum of 10 Italians - men, women or children - shot to death for every Nazi killed or wounded in towns or cities.
Antonio “Tony” Ghezzo spoke of his youthful determination to rid Italy of Nazis and Fascists, “a plague upon his land”. Antonio had authored two booklets describing his experiences. Salvatore, upon reading them, suggested to Antonio that his story would make an interesting book. The two friends kicked the idea around over time. Finally upon getting the “okay” from Antonio, Salvatore began an immediate research project on the dynamics involving the patterns and history of Fascism, its growth and development and how it all impacted the life of his friend, Antonio Ghezzo.
During the ensuing years, the two couples met often. Besides the periodic POINTers luncheons, they attended a number of other Italian events and each time Salvatore would casually bring up the subject of Antonio’s Partisan days and jot down an anecdote which happened to cross Antonio’s mind.
As the book was nearing its completion, it was time to Salvatore to put his artistic tal- ents to work. He had decided that the cover of a book called Living in the Mouth of the Wolf should show the head of a grey wolf. So, he got out his paints and painted the wolf pictured on the cover of the book. At last, Salvatore had a completed manuscript and a painting of a wolf, but no publisher. He was badly in need of a miracle.
What Salvatore didn’t know is he had been sitting next to his “miracle” for the longest time. During the years he and his wife attended the POINTers luncheon, they enjoyed conversing with a lady name Jean Giunta- Denning and her husband Vaughn Denning.
What Salvatore did not know was that Jean Giunta-Denning was the publisher of Thunderbird Press of Rancho Mirage. The rest, as they say, is history...
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Living in the Mouth of the Wolf, the book’s title, came about because from day one (Antonio was his mother Caterina’s male “miracle” baby- her two previous “bambini” had not survived), Antonio continued to be one lucky fellow throughout his life as a Partisan. In the Italian Culture, exists as an invocation by which one wishing to bestow good fortune upon another would speak the words “in bocca al lupo” (in the mouth of the wolf).
The author’s research on the meaning of the idiom suggests that somehow it may be derived from the legend of Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of the Roman Empire, who as twin babies were raised by a she-wolf. The wolf, in caring for her cubs can be quite gentle. However, she will also fight to the death to protect them, leaving no doubt that the cub in the mouth of the wolf is probably in a place most safe and secure.
The fact that Antonio, as a teenage Italian Partisan, escaped death many times and lived to tell his tale as an octogenarian, makes me a believer that somebody up there took the “in the mouth of the wolf” invocation of good fortune to heart and of course his mother Caterina’s prayers to St. Antonio didn’t hurt either. The book, Living in the Mouth of the Wolf, is a true story written in novel form that will provide the Reader with an authentic account of events as experienced by ordinary Italians and others, caught up in the ideological quagmire which was Fascist Italy during the Second World War.
The book is a product of verbal and written anecdotes of those who lived it. Although many of the characters’ names are fictitious, they represent real people, but remain anonymous in deference to their desire for privacy. However, the names of political figures, responsible for the war’s direction, have not been changed. Their actions serve as necessary milestones in history which, in this case, parallel the growing years of Antonio Ghezzo, a child born into Fascism. Living in the Mouth of the Wolf, is not intended to be a comprehensive account of Fascist Italy, nor of Mussolini’s alliance with Hitler. Dates and places are, for the most part, approximates and have been cited primarily for the purpose of illustrating the places and circumstances in which our central character, Antonio Ghezzo, finds himself.
Antonio Ghezzo, Simeone Ghezzo and his wife Caterina’s male “miracle” baby, arrived in 1927 in the town of Ravenna (Emilia) and was welcomed by his four sisters, Albina, Lida, Alma and Renata. When Antonio was six his family moved to Ancona (Marche) where Fascism and its precepts became the guidelines by which Italians lived their lives. Antonio’s father, an officer in the Royal Army of King Victor Emmanuel III and staunch opponent of Fascism, was forced to affect a demeanor of acquiescence. He and many Italians like him played their parts well and little “Antonio the Fascist” became eligible to attend Public School.
Antonio, a newcomer to Fascism, had never been affiliated with the Figli della Lupa (Children of the She-Wolf), a group comprised of youngsters beginning with kindergarten and ranging in ages from four to eight. These young people were being prepared for the day they would drill with muskets. Upon reaching the age of eight, they would be graduated to the status of Balilla. The Balilla was comprised of boys between the ages of eight and fourteen. Each family was required to outfit its male youngsters in the Balilla uniform consisting of a black shirt, a fez cap, grey shorts and long grey socks. Antonio’s family complied with the requirement.
At approximately the same time that Italy was embarking upon its invasion of Abyssinia, Antonio was entering the ranks of the Balilla.
Antonio and his comrades began their education in the ways of Fascism beginning with the name “Balilla”.
Intended to be an inspiration to these children, Balilla takes its names from a 19th century Genovese boy of that name who was credited with starting a riot when he threw a rock at an Austrian soldier. The soldier’s overreaction was said to have caused an uprising of such magnitude that it eventually resulted in Italy’s freedom from Austria’s domination.
The children of the Balilla were required to memorize vari- ous political verses, which included:
I believe in Rome, the Eternal
The mother of my country
I believe in the genius of Mussolini
And in the resurrection of the Empire
Echoing ancient Roman army protocol, a child was referred to as a “Legionnaire”, while and adult officer was referred to as a “Centurion”.
Each child was issued a special pin depicting a symbolic crest of Fascism bearing the inscription, “Gioventù Italiana del lavoro” (Italian Youth Workers), which identified them as members of the Fascist Party. Wearing of the Fascist pin was mandatory.
Anyone coming to school without the Fascist pin fastened to his outer garment would immediately be sent home to retrieve it.
Besides grammar, literature, mathematics, and science, the curriculum emphasized the glory of the Fascist culture and the benefits brought about by Mussolini.
By the time Antonio reached the age of eleven, his family had moved to Catanzaro, Calabria, where he attended middle school. He assimilated quickly but soon began noticing the absence of a number of his classmates. Perhaps they’re all sick with a cold, he thought to himself, assuming they would return after recovering from their illness, but they didn’t. When he inquired about the status of his missing classmates, he was told that they had moved far away.
It wasn’t until years later that he would learn of the deportation of thousands of Italian Jews to Nazi death camps and wondered if any his classmates were among those killed.
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In 1938 Antonio and his family moved from Catanzaro, Calabria to Florence where he met and befriended Mario. By 1941, the Italians were forced to withdraw from Ethiopia after being pushed back into Libya by the British. And before the year was out, Italy would find itself up against the United States who was responding to a non-provoked attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Morale on the Italian war front was low, and a sense of melancholia permeated the air.
It was also the year that Antonio and Mario turned fourteen years of age.
Upon reaching the age of fourteen, they ceased to be Balilla and became members of the Avanguardista, the name for those known as “Soldiers of Il Duce”. The process required them to report to The Casa del Fascio, the Fascist meeting hall, which was also called the “Dante Rossi” in honor of a Fascist martyr killed by socialists in 1921. Dante Rossi Hall was located where Via del Agnolo and Via Verdi intersect, just a few blocks from where the boys lived.
By 1944, it became apparent that the Germans were treating their so called Italian Allies like so much horse manure, often stopping trains or sending German trucks to seal off certain sections of the city for the purpose of capturing more men to send to labor camps in Germany. They boys after observing numerous incidents of German brutality and shooting of Italian innocents joined the “Partigiani”.
Throughout his journey, the boy who became a Partisan, as he matured into manhood, would escape the grasp of death, even when his demise seemed imminent. When others all around him were meeting their ultimate fate, Antonio seemed somehow to be Living in the Mouth of the Wolf...
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To order this authentic page turner written by Sal DiVita in a “you are there” style, you can go online to www.LivingInTheMouthOfTheWolf.com
Living in the Mouth of the Wolf ($19.95) by Salvatore DiVita is also available at:
Vroman’s Bookstore - in person or by phone, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101 (626) 449-5320.
Whittier Bookstore - in person or by phone, 6708 Greenleaf Ave., Whittier, CA 90601 (562) 286-6708.
Order now, you will be glad you did.
